Miami coach Mario Cristobal has taken a relentless amount of heat on the heels of Saturday night's debacle in the waning moments of the 23-20 home loss to Georgia Tech. Instead of simply kneeling down on the ball and letting the clock run out up 20-16 at the time and victory within grasp, the Hurricanes called for running back Donald Chaney Jr to take the ball up the middle. Chaney lost the football in traffic and the Yellow Jackets recovered at their own 26-yard line before.
Four plays later and 24 seconds later, Georgia Tech quarterback Haynes King found a wide open Christian Leary for the dramatic go-ahead touchdown with just one second remaining on the clock.
During the weekly press conference on Monday, Miami offensive coordinator Shannon Dawson stepped to the podium and took ownership for the decision to hand the ball to Chaney rather than securing the victory with a kneel.
"What we did at the end was the wrong decision. I called it … it was the wrong thing to do," Dawson said.
While Dawson took blame for play call, Cristobal recognized his responsibility for the incident that led to the 'Canes suffering their first loss of the season in such stunning fashion.
"I think any time you lose a game, it's agonizing … to do what we do, you have to be a really tough person and that's what we have in this building," he said.
Cristobal also addressed the final two minutes of the game in detail during his post-game comments Saturday immediately following the loss.
"When the drive started, it was going to be at 1:57 and we could burn about 1:27 off and then it was recalibrated," Cristobal said after the game. "We should have taken a timeout there at the end. We thought he could get the first down and we talked about two hands on the ball, but that isn't good enough. That's it, we fumbled the ball and they went 75 yards in two plays. There is no excuse. We were moving the pile and we had a pretty good drive going. I am not going to make an excuse for it and say we should have done this or that. Sometimes we can get carried away. But I should have just stepped in and said, 'Hey, take a knee.'"
Despite the brutal loss, Miami remained in the AP Top 25 come Sunday with the Hurricanes falling eight spots to No. 25.
